old boxes

i have found myself with a lot of old material to go through; a moving trailer full of an unsorted life, and a small store of old boxes from before i left home more than ten years ago.  some of these things have been packed for probably fifteen years, and looking through them is -- well, a little unnerving.  most of them are half- or more full of junk.  my treasures of yesteryear are, i think, a good place to start with this undertaking. 

i pulled out one old box and the contents speak pretty clearly of a harsher childhood than i even remember.  i may do this with several boxes: i'm going to list an inventory of this box, and i think you'll see what i'm talking about.


first, i want to highlight this as something that i held onto from when i was probably eleven or twelve.  it was a gift from an aunt, but i figure most people would have definitely tossed the whole thing after a year or two.  the truth is, i think that this was one of my nicer things.  it's clearly meant for entertaining crafty kids for a good number of hours, but almost twenty years later this is what i'm thinking (and i bring it up because, if you think about it for a bit, none the possible reasons are very healthy): why do i still have this?  why did i keep it, box and all?  why didn't i even move the contents at any point to something more suitable?

yes.  and, onto the first miscellaneous box.  what do we have here?
this box will give you an idea as to what i expect to find while sorting through all of this.  here's the list:



- ancient coil assembly
- bundle of sports cards
- 2 playing cards
- broken label maker
- crayons
- 20" woven strap
- mechanical outlet timer
- plastic panda coaster
- belt buckle from the alamo
- small screw drivers
- phial of charcoal
- tacks
- marble
- air pump needle/fittings
- broken volume knob
- wooden derby car
- magic eye 3d illusions
- promotional stickers from a cd release
- insert from collectable ussr coin
- broken tiny chain bracelet
- random plastic pieces
- screw and square nut
- rolling rubber stamp


now, a lot of this box is clearly also from when i was about eleven.  but, aside from the general question of why did i keep these things, i have to just say ...why the hell did i keep these things? a broken, rusted, weathered coil?  look at this thing.  what's it even from?  how old is it?  how long has it not worked for?  what did i expect to do with it?  how did it end up in a box with crayons and a derby car?

i've always been intensely interested in how things work.  and how things are put together.  which explains some of it.  but, why didn't i just get myself a working coil?  the answer is somewhere in there with the phial of charcoal.  i collected that into a plastic phial from a chemistry set because, of course, i wanted to make gunpowder with it.  duh.


the tacks?  well, look at them...they're not normal, every day tacks, right?  wrong.  they're just tacks.  i liked them i think because of their shape, but notice that most of them are bent?  i kept them anyway.  why?  because i didn't have free access to tacks.  that's right.  tacks were not a commodity.  they were a treasure.  when i was like ten, right?  well, these survived in my stuff until i left home.  so, were they still a treasure when i was 17?  fuckyeah.  why?  because even then, i had what i saved/rescued, and pretty damned close to nothing else.  not that i couldn't have got at some tacks, but these tacks are not like normal tacks.  starting to get the picture?


i feel a little like i'm overstating the financial desolation i grew up with, but then i stop and think about it.  i had the things i needed, but if i had thought at the time that i could get a new, functioning $5 coil, then why did i save this one?  why did i save tacks and a broken volume knob?  the truth is, we didn't have money for a new coil.  the broken label maker, i thought i needed to fix somehow, because we couldn't just replace it.


there will occasionally be things with native american designs, because i liked them.  i make no apologies.  but, things like this strap are really about more than that i liked the pattern.  normal people buy stuff like this on a roll of 25 yards.  i kept, for years, a length of 18 or 20 inches.


my entertainment was made up of simple, cheap things.  these magic eye illusions were my best ones.  what do i mean by that?  i took the time to sort out the ones "worth keeping."  i don't have boxes of old video games or remote control cars or even legos.  i have junk.  lots of junk. broken bits of plastic and metal that i was sure i could do something with.  i doubt i have much in all this old stuff that was ever worth anything.  maybe some books.


this rubber stamp tells a story of desparation. i liked rubber stamps, and we'll see more later...and again we have the native american theme, but it seems to be ...a rug. that's right, this rolling stamp is of a rug. i'm no expert, but i'm going to venture to say that no one should spend their money on this sort of thing without a distinct purpose. so i'm asking myself, why did i have it?

when i was younger i always had some scheme about how i was going to make money.  usually, this involved making something i could sell.  or collecting sports cards, because someday, they'll be worth something.  i think this box, in all its random pointlessness, begins to draw a pretty clear picture of what my life involved.  a few keepsakes; the belt buckle, and the panda coaster i probably made when i was 4.  but mostly, garbage that i thought i needed because i couldn't realistically get new, nice things.

i always wanted a nice remote control car.  never did get one.  never did make money.  never have gotten new, nice things.  i still make all my shit.

who am i

i have survived quite a unique life thus far. 

i recently became acutely aware that during my formative years i was relatively deprived, and, while arguably well-educated, misdirected in many ways.  i'm smart, but lack many disciplines that most people see as basics of life.  i have some difficulty with mental processes by normal standards, and for some time have suspected asperger's syndrome or the like.  day-to-day tasks are sometimes simply beyond my capability. 

in an effort to explore my histories, untie some knots and shed some light on my origins (for the benefit of certain persons [hi nadja]), i will now attempt to pull some pieces of myself together in one place. 

keep in mind that i do not intend on displaying accomplishments or keeping an active account of circumstances; my purpose here is to expose some of the grit and soot that i myself have until recently forgotten or ignored.